Monday, June 27, 2011

Keeping It Meme-y, Part 1

If you're like most people who have a Facebook account, chances are good you have friends on both sides of the political aisle. I noticed something strange yesterday from my portside friends. A friend of mine that I met in Minnesota, along with an old high school friend, both linked to an article from the leftist website ThinkProgress detailing an allegation that our old friend David Prosser, recently re-elected to the Wisconsin Supreme Court in a contentious election, supposedly choked another member of the Supreme Court, Ann Bradley.

There's plenty strange about this, but what was most interesting is the comment from both of my Facebook pals, which referenced "keeping it classy." It struck me as odd because if the allegations concerning Prosser were true, it would be grounds for demanding his resignation.

I'll admit that I'm disinclined to believe anything that ThinkProgess says, so I turned to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, which has been the best MSM information source throughout the last several months of the madness in Madison. Their report was a little more, ahem, complete:

At least five justices, including Prosser and Bradley, had gathered in Bradley’s office and were informally discussing the decision. The conversation grew heated, the source said, and Bradley asked Prosser to leave. Bradley was bothered by disparaging remarks Prosser had made about Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson.

Bradley felt Prosser “was attacking the chief justice,” the source said. Before leaving, Prosser “put his hands around her neck in what (Bradley) described as a chokehold,” the source said. “He did not exert any pressure, but his hands were around her neck,” the source said. The source said the act “was in no way playful.”

But another source told the Journal Sentinel that Bradley attacked Prosser. “She charged him with fists raised,” the source said. Prosser “put his hands in a defensive posture,” the source said. “He blocked her.” In doing so, the source said, he made contact with Bradley’s neck.

Another source said the justices were arguing… [and] Prosser said he”d lost all confidence in [Abrahamson's] leadership. Bradley then came across the room “with fists up,” the source said. Prosser put up his hands to push her back. Bradley then said she had been choked, according to the source. Another justice – the source wouldn’t say who – responded, “You were not choked.”

Strange, huh? Blogger just ate the second half of this post, so I'll have more later.

2 comments:

My take here is really simple; we have here what happens when journalists accept anonymous sources. Justice A tells staffer B about events C....didn't we used to play a game called "Chinese telephone" where we saw what happened with that? And making it anonymous just makes it worse.

Time to start telling would be gossips that if they're not willing to name themselves, they'd better have a VERY good reason to request anonymity. "I would be killed" would be OK, "I would be fired" would not.

And yet again, it's the left that resorts to violence and physical intimidation and a willing media to cover the weakness of their arguments. Mr. D likes to call the orchestrated politico-media posturing "kabuki" but I think it is more like another older form of stagecraft: the Greek Chorus.